Posts Tagged ‘Neuroscience’

On and off, and On again I’ve been learning to sing. Since I was planning to set up recording for music I thought I ought to get my vocal chords heard before I started vainly recording anything, or crooning terribly then releasing it on an unsuspecting world. These goes back to before I started this blog originally, some three years or more.

There was a good second reason, and one which has given me some important benefit. My ME (CFS). I’m always breathless before the end of the sentence; I struggle with words – the wrong ones pop out or I lose the thread.

Singing was a way of getting some vocal and mental exercise. I really need it as well stuck at home trying to get my life together I’d not see anyone from one week to the next, so speaking and thinking was something I rarely tried?

I found myself a local singing tutor. Somewhere like First Tutors I think it was.

Having found a sympatric ear, a piano and vocal tutor just round the corner – and someone prepared to teach an adult in the style of my choosing (blues) was an excellent start.

I was happily surprised that my voice and tone wasn’t too bad, and with my years of guitar practise my pitch was almost prefect.

Long term I should continue and practise these more often, they can be done standing or sitting – and make me feel refreshed and clear-headed. A huge boost to the stuffy fatigued feeling I have usually!

Life and illness has got in the way, but I can stop and start any time I like, and do these exercise at home. (I can no longer afford the tutor.)

When I stop exercising, or playing my mood goes down, and my brain fog increases. Now experts will say this is because ever part of the brain from the prefrontal cortex to the hippocampus to the parietal lobe are stimulated in different ways.

I quoted in my book:

“I love the blues, they tell my story. If you don’t feel it you can never understand. So many times I thought about it and now I know just what it means to be a man” – David Coverdale and Bernie Marsden – Walking in the Shadow of the blues, Whitesnake album Lovehunter 1979.

I’ve never heard it put better. “I love the blues, they tell my story.” I love music, we need music. Music inspires and evokes emotion in a healthy way.

Music can touch our emotional being and evokes moods and feelings that are sometimes difficult to express. In many ways it prepares you, if you’ve heard that song about ‘being heartbroken and a long way from home’, it can cushion and ease the pain or even start the tears that need to fall. (The Long Hard Highway)

I carry on singing, exercising my vocal chords and diaphragm when I can find time, but I can always find time for music!